Quote of the day

"Sometimes I'd be revolted by the way it casually vandalised human lives; exposing some hitherto unknown woman as a 'vice girl', say, just to fill half a page. But a few weeks later my disgust would fade, and I'd pick up another copy. Bad for me – but I didn't stop buying it, just as I didn't stop buying cigarettes. It was the 90s, and I was young and dumb enough to view the world as a big cartoon. I smoked with the force and frequency of a man hell-bent on turning his lungs into a pair of charcoal slippers, in the belief that cancer couldn't catch me. In much the same spirit I'd read the News of the World 'ironically', like an arsehole."

Charlie Brooker, reviewing the last ever edition of the News of the World for the Guardian, reflects on his NotW-reading past.

Incidentally, just in case you missed it, here's Steve Coogan (and, to a lesser extent, Greg Dyke) taking former NotW Deputy Features Editor Paul McMullen apart on Newsnight. When asked about some of the political scandals the paper uncovered, Coogan responded curtly: "Hitler was kind to dogs"...

Meanwhile, in an article on the BBC site former NotW investigative reporter Dan Arnold has done himself no favours, exposing the pressure and competitiveness that drove staff to behave deplorably, dismissing "moral qualms" and yet suggesting he still "left with my principles intact".

Coogan's right: it was a nasty rag whose demise is cause for nothing but celebration.